CHAPTER 6 

 DICOTYLEDONS AS POISONOUS PLANTS 



The poisonous plants dealt with in the next four chapters are dicoty- 

 ledons. Dicotyledons are plants with permanent primary root, which 

 produces secondary, lateral roots. The sap bundles are arranged collater- 

 ally with pith in the center surrounded with a cylinder of xylem, 

 cambium, bast (hard and soft), cortex and bark. The principal veins 

 of the leaves are arranged to form a net, or reticulum. The floral sym- 

 metry is dimerous, trimerous, or pentamerous. The embryo has two 

 seed leaves, or cotyledons. A careful selection has been made of those 

 known to be poisonous to stock. There are in Europe three hundred and 

 fifty plants which are injurious to man and the domestic animals. There 

 are probably as many in America, but the poisonous effect of many have 

 not been demonstrated. Statistics in regard to poisonous plants are 

 lacking, owing to ignorance of the subject and it is, therefore, impossible 

 to give an estimate as to the amount of damage done by these plants. 



There are probably more cases of poisoning on the great stock ranges 

 than- in the farming regions, because the conditions on the great stock 

 ranges are different. The stock on the great ranges do not have invariably 

 a sufficient amount of food, and this probably leads to the use of plants 

 which with a more abundant supply would be avoided. New sheep, 

 which are totally unfamiliar with the range plants, are brought in from 

 farms and naturally fail to discriminate the poisonous from the harmless 

 food plants. Some believe that alkali waters, when used by stock for 

 drinking purposes, serve as a substitute for salt, and induce an unnatural 

 appetite in the stock, which results in their use of the injurious plant 

 species of the range for food. We are thus introduced to the species of 

 plants which have been chosen to represent the great dicotyledonous class. 



Poke or Garget (Phytolacca decandra). The crowberry, chongras 

 or ink plant is a smooth tall perennial growing 5 to 8 feet tall with a 

 thick root, purplish stems, alternate leaves and elongated racemes of 

 greenish-white flowers followed by purple-black berries, which yield 



55 



